The legislature yesterday passed the Act of Providing Support in Response to Trade Liberalization (因應貿易自由化調整支援條例), stipulating that the government should establish a fund to assist negatively impacted industries to weather any damage caused by market liberalization.
The act states that the “fund for supporting and adjusting [the impacted industries] to trade liberalization” should be established by the Executive Yuan, which provides a legal and financial basis for future governmental measures aimed at supporting industries and individual enterprises.
The new law, which still needs the president’s approval before being promulgated, would require the Ministry of Labor to offer “appropriate supporting aids” to people working in negatively impacted industries and companies.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Under the act, “observing mechanisms” are to be set up before economic agreements are signed, to understand how well industries are prepared for trade liberalization and a consultation service should be provided to the enterprises after the agreements are signed.
The attached resolutions — which are not legally binding — call for the Council of Agriculture to adjust the nation’s agricultural structure accordingly and offer employment and daily living assistance to agricultural workers and fishermen negatively impacted by free trade.
According to the Executive Yuan’s draft bill proposed in September, the NT$10 billion (US$302.79 million) fund would be allocated over a 10-year period to medium and small-sized enterprises; with each business gaining a maximum of NT$5 million.
In related news, the Personal Information Protection Act (個人資料保護法) was yesterday amended to protect personal information concerning medical records, genetic information, sexuality, health checks and criminal records from unauthorized collection, handling and use.
“The significant change made by the amendment is that in principle, no sensitive personal information should be collected, handled or used, with exceptions only being granted via legal orders or when official institutions are performing their tasks,” Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) said.
“Necessary security measures also have to be carried out both before and after the use of the information. Written consent, which should not be forcefully obtained, has to be garnered from the person whose sensitive information is collected, handled and used,” she added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching